Tuesday, January 17, 2017

In Britain, Valls is trying to not acknowledge the coup – Liberation

These are very small signals, almost subliminal. Posters of Arnaud Montebourg who is always on the panels of the municipalities. A man wearing a mask of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a kitchen called Hamon in the main street or a sticker against the airport of Notre-Dame-des-Landes in the field of the cameras. Since he has set foot in Lamballe (Côtes-d’armor) on Tuesday, nothing goes without saying for Manuel Valls.

His visit, flanked by Jean-Yves Le Drian, was to be the culmination of the end of this campaign. The proof is in the picture, after a big month complicated, that to him, the former Prime minister, was not only supported by the largest number of members of government, but especially by historically close to François Hollande. In the morning, the candidate is already posted in Villeurbanne, in the company of Najat Vallaud-Belkacem before landing in Brittany a shot, say hello to the propeller. Two beautiful images history of silencing the little music ministers refractory, Ségolène Royal, Jean-Marc Ayrault in passing by Alain Vidalies. A young hairy in-sweat-shirt-purple, presented by the team as a member of the extreme right-wing autonomist breton to have already been in trouble with the law, came to upset this beautiful order, dealing a blow to the cheek and to the campaign of Valls.

coming out of the mairie de Lamballe, Valls and Le Drian shake the hands of a bunch of grannies, brittany. The large young man slipped into the small guard of honour improvised. He slaps the former minister of the Interior before being tackled to the ground by the security service in a roar of metal barriers. Manuel Valls, the man stretched, subscriber to the blows of chins and boxing lessons, reacts calmly, reassures those around her – “it is good”, “ok”- and returns as soon as possible to the ressourcerie of the city, chosen by the team to illustrate the recycling process, the insert and its “decent income”. In short, the “society of work” and not of its scarcity, the main axis of the campaign, Benoît Hamon, who will be the object of all the attacks of Valls during the day.

Before the bread, the flour

Before the images of the altercation do not reach the social networks, the campaign manager Manuel Valls, Didier Guillaume, begins by minimize. There has already been the packet of flour on the head to Strasbourg just before Christmas and then the cancellation of the meeting of Rennes, where the opponents to the law Labour had announced a host committee teeth to Valls. The candidate shall pay on the ground of his years as Prime minister. But in Paris and Lamballe, there was no question of leaving it to hover again the idea of a campaign is cursed so that the televised debates have allowed Valls to redo a few levels after the start of the season upset.

“there has been a small gesture when they shook hands”, first explains Didier Guillaume. That gear much more politically then, rising up against “those who are always trying to prevent democracy to express themselves”. Five days before the first round, “the most important thing is the présidentialité, the project and the primary”, insists his spokesman, Olivier Dussopt. It puts into perspective and moving on to something else, even if Valls indicated that he would submit a complaint “not to suggest that there is acceptance of the violence on a political motive, it is a symbol”.

Valls and Le Drian re-emerging of workshops, smiles uptight. The former Prime minister of greet Britain, “a generous strength”, and Jean-Yves Le Drian before playing the card of the “contact with French people” to explain the incident. the “If I’m hired it’s because I’ve never been afraid of my fellow countrymen. [This movement] it is always serious but this is not what interests me. I am brave, not physically but because I tell the truth”, explains Valls in front of the cameras. The one who is proud of having converted the left to the authority even manages to bounce on his campaign slogan: “The Republic strong is this : you need rules, we cannot accept violence”.

Valls the “faizou”

suddenly, the ode to Jean-Yves le Drian to the stature and strength of “man of State” Valls passes almost unnoticed. the “I’ve seen his strength, his courage and his spirit of decision [...] In life, there are the dizou and faizou. Manual is a faizou”, insists the minister of Defence who is also the president of the Brittany region and the only cumulard of the government.

Echaudé physically, Manuel Valls takes all its hits policy to Benoît Hamon, installing the idea of a duel of the second round. The universal income of the former minister of Education focuses all of his critics. the “I am for the utopias of the concrete in the words of Michel Rocard. But utopias such as the RMI, the RSA or the CSG. The utopias, this is not consider that you no longer need to work”, he insists in a pot with activists in PS in the raw.

Valls range of his socialist adversaries, all former ministers of president François Hollande, in the category of “the left that does not want to govern”. Almost worse in his eyes than the hard right and the extreme right. He called on the “people of France”. He did a ton on the “strength”, “the shoulders” and “courage” he opposed to Donald Trump, if he is elected president in may, multiplies the references to “an uncertain world” in which the French campaign unfolds, and draws even a parallel with 1917. the “The choice is there : do you want yes or no one left who wins or do you want to be in the opposition ?”, insists Valls in inviting the French to thwart the predictions : “nothing is written”. To erase the images of the afternoon, the cameras have finally been allowed to film the meeting in the small hall of a municipal Lamballe decorated with campaign posters…in extremis.